I imagine that might have been the case, but there wasn't much news about an imminent war, so it seemed to me to be a training exercise. There were 3 occasions when I was stationed on the East Coast that we were put on alert -- 1956, the Suez Crisis, 1957 the Hungarian Revolt, and 1958 the Invasion of Lebanon.

Because we were part of the Fleet Marine Force (Atlantic), we were tasked with having a 24 hour "pack up" and be ready to move out doctrine. Most of our equipment and supplies were packed in crates, then stacked into "shelves" in our warehouses. With a "go code", all we had to do was put lids on those crates, band them, and load them up. The crates were all stencil marked with the contents, so little questioning about what was inside. It was a pretty well-thought out system, even in the pre-computer era.

Harvey